1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a device and method for locking two building boards connected to one another, in particular floor panels with a core of wood material or wood material/plastic mixture, in a direction perpendicular to a visible side and, more particularly, to a device and method which is designed to lock two building boards to one another by a vertical lowering movement.
2. Discussion of Background Information
WO 2005/054599 shows flooring panels with a locking device. The locking device is provided on the transverse side of floor panels. In addition to the locking device, a hook-shaped profiling is embodied on the transverse side so that two panels can hook into one another with their lateral edges so as to become locked in a direction running parallel to the top side. The panels are provided on the longitudinal side with a self-locking tongue/groove profiling. During laying, the panel to be newly laid against the panel board already laid is first connected on the longitudinal side to the panel already laid by angling the tongue into the groove and then pushing in the angled position in the direction of the lateral edge of the panel previously laid in the same row and then lowered. The hook-shaped profiling engages with one another and the tongue element then snaps into the newly laid panel.
The known tongue element is embodied of plastic and chamfered on its top side. Similar to a door latch, through the chamfer, the tongue element is pressed inwards into the groove by the panel to be newly fitted, when the underside of the tongue element strikes the chamfer and is lowered.
Special injection-molded tools are necessary for the production of the tongue element described above. To this end, the production is relatively expensive. Furthermore, a high-quality plastic must be used in order to provide adequate strength values, which further increases the cost of the tongue element. If plastics are used which have strength values that are too low, this leads to relatively large dimensions of the tongue elements, since this is the only way of ensuring that corresponding forces can be generated or transferred.
Accordingly, there exists a need in the art to overcome the deficiencies and limitations described hereinabove.